Connecticut’s Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell on Wednesday vetoed the $37.9 billion two-year budget passed by the Democratic led-General Assembly last week.
“Instead of reducing spending as families and businesses across Connecticut have done, [the budget bill] does nothing to reduce the size or cost of a government that has outgrown the taxpayers’ ability to pay for it,” Rell said in a press release. “Rather, it pushes the pain of sacrifice off the state bureaucracy and onto the state’s taxpayers.”
Rell criticized the bill’s tax increases on corporations and wealthy residents. A menu of tax increases and fees in the bill were expected to raise $2.5 billion over the biennium. Democrats have said that Rell’s proposed cuts were too deep. The budget would have closed a budget gap that the governor’s office put at $7.95 billion and the General Assembly put at $8.7 billion.
On Tuesday, Rell issued an executive order to fund government operations as the state entered a new fiscal year without a budget.
